In a typical magnetic storage system, digital data is stored in a series of concentric circular tracks along a storage medium. Data is written to the medium by positioning a read/write head assembly over the medium at a selected location as the storage medium is rotated, and subsequently passing a modulated electric current through the head assembly such that a corresponding magnetic flux pattern is induced in the storage medium. To retrieve the stored data, the head assembly is positioned anew over the track as the storage medium is rotated. In this position, the previously stored magnetic flux pattern induces a current in the head assembly that can be converted to the previously recorded digital data. Defective regions may exist in the storage medium. Writing data to a defective region can result in the loss of such data. To avoid this, various approaches have been developed for identifying defective regions. However, some of these approaches can yield false positives in some environments, incorrectly identifying a region of the storage medium as defective.